


And "Action!"

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, Flirting, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Movie Sets, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:59:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4466297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being pulled off the street and told he was supposed to be a background extra in a scene being shot in a diner wasn't exactly how Dean had planned his day to go. It wasn't so bad, though - he was being nicely compensated for his time, and even getting a free meal out of it. It's not like he had anything better to do with his day, anyway. </p><p>Well, at least until a gorgeous blue-eyed man sat down across from him and introduced himself as "Castiel."</p>
            </blockquote>





	And "Action!"

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just on a roll with these prompts, aren't I? lol anyway - 
> 
> Based on "We’re extras in the background of the restaurant of a movie set who have to pretend to be conversing but you’re actually really interesting and I’m actually kind of really into you and the director just called ‘cut!’ because apparently we’re distracting from the main characters who should be making eyes and falling in love instead of a couple of random extras." 
> 
> Totally inaccurate portrayal of movie sets, by the way. Just so you know.

Dean took a seat at one of the empty booths, sliding in with a quick glance around the rest of the diner. Camera crews and lighting fixtures were set up around a table in the middle of the room at the focus of the scene. The main actors - quirky and cunning Bela Talbot and pompously British Balthazar Roché - were milling about in the background, talking to the director about the script or something. 

Dean didn’t much care what all was going on; he was being compensated for his time and getting a free meal or two out of it. What more did he need to care about? 

Other extras were taking their seats around the diner, low chatter filling the air and creating a relaxed, easy atmosphere. Dean slumped against the booth, taking his phone out to check his texts while he waited for things to start. Sam wanted to know  _everything_  about what happened on set - kid was a religious follower of whatever movie series this was (Dean didn’t bother paying attention; all he knew was that it was some sort of romantic drama and yeah, no) - and also if Dean could get him Balthazar’s autograph.  _For Jess, Dean_ Sam insisted. 

Dean just smirked. Right. Jess. Who was totally gay (as her girlfriend Sarah had no problem reminding them all) and in love with Bela. And  _not_ for Sam, who was also totally gay (Dean hadn’t liked Brady at all and was the first one to celebrate when the kid kicked the asshole to the curb) and still had a crush on that one comedian-actor that irritated Dean to no end whenever he saw the man on TV. Something about his wolfish grin and the mischievous glint in his eyes. 

“Is this seat open?” 

Dean looked up from his phone, eyes meeting the blue (like  _wow, those are blue_ ) ones of the man standing next to his table. The guy was dressed like he’d been on his way to an interview, or was maybe just coming from one and had passed by the diner and gotten dragged into being an extra too. His suit was slightly rumpled, his tie askew, and a tan coat was folded over one arm. Five o’clock shadow covered his jaw, his hair was a ruffled mess, and those blue eyes were wide and intense as he stared at Dean. 

Blinking, Dean sat up and cleared his throat. “Oh, uh, yeah, sure,” he said, gesturing to the opposite side of the booth. The man quirked a small smile at him and sat down heavily. 

“Thank you,” he sighed, voice deep and rough. He sounded tired, Dean thought. “They pointed me over in this direction and told me to find a seat, but I wasn’t sure you didn’t already have a seatmate.” 

“Nah, just me and myself over here,” Dean joked, grinning. “So they dragged you in off the street, too?” 

The guy nodded and slumped back. Out where the cameras and crew were, the director called “Action!” and the scene officially began. Their job now was to be paying customers in the restaurant. The extras had been told to “look like you’re making conversation with friends or family” and that the normal wait staff would be around to take orders if they were hungry. Any food ordered would be paid for by the production company. They were also told they might be there all day, depending on how many takes the scene needed. 

Dean wasn’t really sure what to do. He didn’t socialize for the sake of socialization, and he had no ideas for any topic of conversation to make with a complete stranger. Especially a stranger that looked like he should be the main male interest instead of Roché; dude was hot, Dean wasn’t gonna lie. 

Thankfully, a waitress appeared before the silence between them drew out into awkward, and Dean smiled sweetly up at her as he ordered a cheeseburger and fries with a beer. 

“Oh, and a slice of that pecan pie, too,” he added with a wink, handing his menu back to her. 

“Good choice, sweetie,” she grinned, taking the menu. “Just made some hot and fresh.” 

“That’s what I like to hear.” Dean looked back over to the guy he was supposed to be pretending to be friends with. Or something. “You want anything, man?” 

Blue eyes moved from his hands up to Dean, then to the menu in front of him. “Ah, same, please.” He handed his menu to the waitress with a small smile. “But I want the lemon meringue pie.” 

“I’ll get these orders right in,” she said, scribbling on her pad before walking off. A “cut!” had been called on the main scene, and Dean briefly watched them reset it to run it again before he turned back to his companion. They  _were_  supposed to be making conversation, right?

“I’m Dean, by the way,” Dean said, rolling the ketchup bottle between his hands. The guy looked up at him again, and Dean gave him a smile. “Since we’re supposed to be talking and all.” 

The guy blinked once before shifting in his seat, relaxing slightly. “Oh, right. My apologies. I’m Castiel.” 

“Castiel,” Dean repeated, lifting an eyebrow in question. “Like the angel, right?” 

“Yes,” Castiel confirmed, looking mildly surprised. “Not many people know that.” 

Dean shrugged, setting the ketchup bottle aside. “My mom was big on angel lore,” he explained. “She wasn’t religious or anything, but she always told me angels were watching over me.” 

“My parents were theology professors,” Castiel offered. “Most of my siblings are all named after various angels.” 

“Mm, how many siblings you got?” 

“Seven brothers and two sisters, though two of my brothers are adopted. My mother spent a few years in Africa helping the children in several countries and ended up taking in two brothers who’d lost their family to disease.” 

“No shit?” Dean said, awe-filled. “That’s pretty cool, Cas. I just got my little brother Sam.” He smiled fondly. “He’s actually a fan of all this movie shit and is totally jealous he’s not here. The nerd.” 

Castiel smiled. “My sister Anna and my brother Samandriel are fans as well. They don’t know I’m here, though.” 

“Dude, ‘Samandriel’?” Dean made a face. “Where did your parents even pull that out of? I feel bad for that kid.” 

Dean wasn’t prepared for the sudden tingles that ran along his arms or pulse of warmth in his chest when Castiel laughed, and he shifted in his seat as he watched the blue of Cas’ eyes sparkle in humor. For some reason, Dean really liked Cas’ laugh. 

“He goes by Alfie,” Cas said as his chuckles faded, though there was still a smile on his lips (lips that looked soft and kissable, Dean’s mind helpfully supplied, and Dean told his mind to take a hike). “Though his isn’t quite as bad as Luce’s.” 

Dean paused a moment, trying to figure out how “Luce” could possibly be any worse than “Samandriel.” He came up with nada. “I don’t know, Cas, ‘Luce’ sounds pretty normal to me.” 

Cas looked bemused. “And when you find out it’s short for Lucifer?” 

It was a good thing they didn’t have their beer yet, because Dean would have spit it all over Cas. “Well, that’s unfortunate,” he stated. “I can see why he goes by Luce.” 

“Oh, no, he goes by Lucifer,” Cas corrected, continuing to smile at Dean’s bewildered expressions. “It’s the rest of us that call him Luce. We all got tired of explaining to people we meet that no, our parents are not devil worshippers, we were all named after angels and he was actually named after an archangel. God’s favorite, depending on what lore you read.” 

“You know, I do think I read something about that,” Dean mused with a nod, looking out the window by their table. He sniffed, pursing his lips, then looked back at Cas. “So you all have angel names?”

Their waitress came by then with their drinks, setting two beers down in front of them before walking off to tend to another table.

Cas took a sip of his beer before answering. “Yes, though some are more obvious than others. Michael and Lucifer are the oldest, followed by Gabriel. Raphael and Uriel were adopted around the time Anna was born, about three years after Ezekiel. Then there’s me and my twin Hannah, and then Samandriel.”

Dean nodded along as Cas told him about his siblings. “Wow, man. I don’t know if I could put up with that many people all the time. I can barely stand it when Sam brings Jess and Sarah to visit and we congregate with Bobby, Jody, and Rufus at Ellen’s. And that’s only on holidays.” He chuckled. “What’s the age differences there?”

Castiel looked thoughtful. “It varies, I suppose. Mike and Luce are twins, and Uriel and Ezekiel and Gabriel and Raphael are the same age, respectively. We practically had four sets of twins. I think the biggest age gap is between Hannah, me, and Alfie at five years.”

“How old are you?” Dean couldn’t help but ask; Cas didn’t look much older than his own twenty-six years.

“Twenty-eight,” Cas replied. He took another sip from his beer, sighing softly and leaning back in the booth. Their waitress came around again with the food, leaving it with a smile, and Dean nearly drooled at the smell.

“Michael and Luce are about to celebrate their thirty-fifth birthday, actually,” Cas added as they began eating. He looked out the window, lips pursed. “I nearly forgot.”

Dean looked at him over his large bite of cheeseburger, chewing the greasy goodness and licking the special barbeque sauce off his fingers. He swallowed and grabbed at his fries, shoving them in his mouth after smearing them through the pool of ketchup in his burger basket. “Do y’all do big birthdays?” he asked.

Cas bit into his burger, the juice from the fresh tomato and mayo mixing and dripping down his chin. Dean watched intently, feeling a hitch in his breath as Cas’ tongue swept out to lick it up before wetting his lips. Cas chewed, then swallowed, and Dean’s attention was drawn to his bobbing Adam’s apple. He felt familiar heat pool low in his belly and shifted in his seat, looking back up at Cas’ eyes instead.

Big mistake, it turned out, as Cas’ eyes were fixed on his lips and darkened with a hunger that had _nothing_ to do with the food in front of them.

Well. It was nice to know the attraction wasn’t one-sided, at least.

Dean cleared his throat around his next bite, feeling his face flush lightly, and he looked down at his fries. “Uh, Cas?” he tried. “You okay?”

Castiel blinked, shaking his head and looking down at his own food. “My apologies, Dean,” he said, and his voice sounded rougher than it had. He cleared his throat, taking a sip of his beer, and Dean followed the example, chugging half of his in one go.

“Don’t sweat it,” Dean chucked, setting his beer back on the table. He tossed Cas his most seductive grin and bedroom eyes, and felt his heart stutter when Cas’ cheeks flushed and the man bit his lip. “I know I’m adorable.”

“Quite,” Cas agreed, chuckling low and setting his burger down. “I may even go as far as breathtakingly attractive, but I’ve been told I’m prone to exaggeration and over-romanticizing.” He tilted his head to the side, and Dean mentally added _adorable_ to his list of Traits Dean Winchester Didn’t Know He Found Attractive Until Castiel. “And terribly blunt, which Gabriel says is not an attractive trait in a potential partner.”

Now Dean was definitely blushing, but he didn’t hold back his smile. “Well, I can’t say it’s not flattering, Cas. And I like blunt,” he added with a smirk. “I’m full of shit, so it’s nice knowing someone who can call me on it.”  

“Mm, I have found that I do that often with people I know and meet,” Cas agreed, popping a fry in his mouth.

Dean laughed, nudging his foot under the table against Castiel’s. “Don’t ever change that about you, Cas. If folks can’t handle it, they don’t deserve you.”

The smile Castiel gave him then was soft, tender, and so sincere Dean felt his heart thump heavily again. “Thank you, Dean,” Castiel said quietly, nudging him back. “We’ve known each other barely an hour and that was probably the nicest thing someone’s said about me since Hannah and I left for college.”

Dean’s brow furrowed at that, and he hooked his foot around Cas’ leg in support. “You don’t talk to them much?”

Cas shook his head sadly. “We’re spread all over the U.S., with families and jobs and lives, as it goes. I don’t see my siblings often – Christmas, sometimes birthdays if one of us is travelling and in the area.”

“You guys don’t call or anything?” Dean was at a loss; he couldn’t go an entire week without talking to Sam, whether over the phone or Skype or whatever. “Were you guys close growing up?”

“Very,” Cas replied, eating another fry. “Our mother died in childbirth with Samandriel, so he never knew her. Not long after, our father disappeared, and Michael and Luce took over caring for us. They were barely sixteen, each working two or three jobs to provide for eight siblings, many barely old enough to use the stove without burning something.”

Dean knew what it felt like to lose a parent too young. “We lost Mom to a fire when Sammy was just barely out of diapers,” he said quietly, crossing his arms and gazing unseeing at the table. “He never really knew her. Dad started moving us around a lot, trying to keep jobs to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. He’d go out drinking at night, just for a couple hours, then stumble home smelling like whiskey before falling asleep on the couch. If it hadn’t been for Bobby, I’m not sure what would have happened to him before the cancer took him.” Dean paused, blinking back the sudden burning of tears. His chest felt tight, and he leaned his arms on the table, staring at his hands. “Sammy’s been all I’ve had since.”

A hand entered his vision, settling on top of his and gripping it gently. Dean turned his hand, letting Cas’ fingers slip between his and squeezing back. He smiled, and Cas smiled back, soft and timid, his blue eyes shining. It was probably the most adorable thing Dean had ever seen.

“CUT! Cut, cut, cut!”

Dean and Castiel jumped at the shout, looking towards the movie crew to see just what was going on. They’d gotten so caught up in each other, Dean had totally forgotten he wasn’t actually on a date with a gorgeous blue-eyed angel who he’d just shared some of his most personal past with and who sent his heart racing in his chest just by smiling at him. Their hands remained clasped between them.

Both Bela and Balthazar looked as confused as the rest of them at the sudden stop of the scene, glancing around to figure out what had happened. The crew was shrugging and whispering to each other. Dean shared a look of confusion with Cas, who simply looked back. Dean was lost in his eyes for a moment, just staring, before he turned his attention back to the movie production.

“No, no, no!” Chuck Shurley, the director, was shaking his head and rubbing his eyes as he slumped in his chair. “This is never going to work! I can’t concentrate with this!”

He jumped up from his chair, stomping into the scene and then _past_ the actors, making a beeline right for the table Dean and Cas were sitting at, a look of exasperated irritation on his face. Dean looked at Cas, then back at Shurley.

“You two!” Shurley pointed at both him and Cas, and Dean frowned. “Stop! Just – just stop! This is not working, and you need to stop!”

Now Dean was definitely confused, and kind of pissed. It wasn’t like he wanted to be there, anyway. No matter how well they were compensating the extras. He had things he could’ve been doing. Not that he’d give up meeting Cas for anything, but still.

“Excuse me?” Dean asked, trying for cool bemusement. He wasn’t sure he didn’t sound rude. _Fuck it._

“What exactly are we doing?” Castiel asked, looking lost, his eyes wide. He looked back at Dean, squeezing Dean’s hand again and reminding Dean that, _oh hey, we’re still holding hands._ Dean didn’t move; it felt too nice to be holding Cas’ hand.

“ _That!”_ Chuck hissed, running his hands through his hair. “The soul-searching staring and the soft smiles and the _hand-holding!_ You two are nothing but a distraction to this production! I can’t concentrate on the scene when I’m busy crying into a tissue over how heart-wrenchingly touching and cute you are!”

Dean blinked at the outburst.

Wait.

What.

“What?” Dean managed, voice sounding strangely mangled to himself.

“I know we told the extras to look like they were having easy conversations, okay?” Chuck rubbed his temples, looking strained and like he had better things than directing a romantic drama to be doing. “I know. This is supposed to be a middle-of-the-day scene, where families and friends are out for lunch and everyone’s just going about their day.

“And people go out on dates in the middle of the day, I understand that. I get it. I do.” He pulled at his hair again, and Dean worried if he was going to actually pull any of it out. “I wanted background noise that would play to enhance the atmosphere surrounding our main characters, to make the revelation of their feelings for each other seem world-shifting yet obvious.

“But _you two,”_ and here Chuck gestured emphatically at Dean and Castiel, “had to go and keep distracting me by laughing like you’ve never heard anything funnier than what the other has to say! Had to go looking at each other like you’ve never seen anything more perfect! Had to go _holding hands_ like you’ve always been connected like that! You had to go _finding your soulmate in the background of my scene!_ ”

Chuck was breathing heavily by the end of his rant. The rest of the diner was quiet, and Dean was gaping at the director with wide eyes. Cas had frozen in his seat, staring in mild apprehension. Nobody dared say anything, or even move for that matter.

Composing himself slightly after a long moment, Chuck rubbed his face again, shaking his head. “It was beautiful, guys,” he muttered, and Dean was appalled to see _tears_ in the man’s eyes. “That’s exactly what I wanted from the scene. Just… you know, from the actual characters.” He sighed, turning away and walking back to his seat.

Dean absently registered Chuck calling for a break, and didn’t pay any mind to the cast and crew shuffling around to head back to their trailers or out to get coffee or whatever it is they did. He turned to look back at Cas, who had flushed in embarrassment and was looking down at their hands. Dean looked too, and he couldn’t help the flyby thought that their hands really did look like they’d been made to fit together like that.

“You know,” Dean said slowly, and he smiled when Cas glanced up from under his dark lashes, the blue irises shimmering in the light of the diner. “They never said we _had_ to stay and do this,” he continued, gesturing with his free arm to the rest of the diner. “If you don’t have anywhere else to be, you wanna, I don’t know, find somewhere else to be?”

Castiel blinked at him, and Dean hurriedly added, “I wanna get to know you, Cas. More than just that you have a big family you used to be close to but don’t talk to anymore and that you were dragged into being an extra on the set of a movie that your sister and brother like. I wanna know what you do for work, what you like to do in your free time, and how you take your coffee. I wanna know your favorite season and whether you hum or sing along to the radio and if you like ACDC or Zeppelin, because this relationship won’t work if you can’t put up with at least one of them.”

Dean smiled sheepishly, nudging Cas’ leg to let him know he was kidding about the last one. Mostly. “I wanna know how you curl up on the couch when you fall asleep, and if you do it during a storm or if you’d rather stay awake and watch the rain and listen to the thunder.” Dean squeezed their hands again. “I wanna know it all, Cas. I don’t normally – anyone else and I couldn’t care less, but I wanna know you. I really do.”

Castiel was quiet, just staring at Dean with his blue eyes and that soul-searching stare, as Chuck had called it. Dean had to admit, it was an accurate description. He stared back, though, memorizing the wave of dark hair that looked like Cas’ fingers were constantly running through it; the shape of his lips, his nose, his eyes. It was unreal what he was feeling for someone he’d only met because a movie set needed extra people to fill the space.

After an agonizing moment of silence, Castiel’s lips quirked at the corners, and he squeezed Dean’s hand before retracting his arm. “I’d love to know you, too, Dean,” he said, and Dean grinned, standing from the booth.

“Well, in that case.” Dean held out his hand again, helping pull Cas from the booth. “Dean Winchester. It’s nice to meet you.”

Blue eyes sparkled up at him, smiling even though his lips hadn’t moved. “Castiel Novak,” that deep voice answered, and he took Dean’s elbow as they headed out of the diner, past the cameras and the crew and the actors and Chuck, who told them their compensation would come in the mail in the next couple of weeks.

“The pleasure is mine.” 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [leviathncas](http://leviathncas.tumblr.com)


End file.
